Title: Commemorating War in Eighteenth-Century China
Abstract:Reviewing his long reign in 1792, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1795) hailed his military triumphs as one of its central accomplishments. To underscore the importance he ascribed to these successes, h...Reviewing his long reign in 1792, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1795) hailed his military triumphs as one of its central accomplishments. To underscore the importance he ascribed to these successes, he began to style himself ‘Old Man of the Ten Complete Victories’ ( Shi Quan Lao Ren ), after an essay in which he boldly declared he had surpassed, in ‘Ten Complete Military Victories’ ( Shi Quan Wu Gong ), the far-reaching westward expansions of the great Han (206 BCE–220 CE) and Tang (618–907) empires. Such an assertion, together with the program of commemoration discussed below, served to justify the immense expense incurred by frequent long-distance campaigning; to elevate all these wars to an unimpeachable level of splendor even though some were distinctly less glorious than others; and to align the Manchu Qing dynasty (16–191 i) with two of the greatest native dynasties of Chinese history and the Qianlong Emperor personally with some of the great figures of the past.Read More
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 27
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